Helping a Hack
by HaileyHack
Summary: A vixen comes to the Chaotix asking for help finding her brother. When Vector can't find any info on either things become suspicious, and it doesn't take long for Espio to realize the girl is a hacker. Is she a friend or enemy? Read to find out.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Uhh first story. Hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer: I only own Hailey and Clyde the foxes, no one else. The Chaotix and all Sonic-related characters belong to SEGA or Archie, depending on which characters they are...**

**Warning: Contains FCxCanon (mostly one-sided, but eventually.. yea). Also, I'm not sure if this story has a happy ending or not. It might have a tragic ending, I dunno yet! Sorry!  
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**-LineBreak-**

_Ting!_

"Excu-"

"Agh! What is wrong with this thing? Stupid virus!"

Espio glanced up from his meditation to see Vector shouting at the computer. Then he looked at the door where someone was standing. Vector was obviously oblivious to the newcomer. The newcomer, on the other hand, was staring wide-eyed at him as he shouted a series of really strong words at the computer.

The newcomer was a female fox, maybe five inches shorter than Espio himself. Her fur was a dark golden colour, and the fur that constituted for her hair was the same exact colour, only it was shoulder-length. The girl's eyes were blue-green and her muzzle, tail-tip, and eartips were all white. Speaking of her tail, it seemed thinner and sleeker than the average fox's.

Her shirt was a blue turtleneck sweater while her pants were bluejeans that, just under the knees, tucked into a pair of green boots. These boots had gold rims at the top that extended down the center front and down to the black soles. He didn't know for sure, but based on the rest of her fur, he decided that she was wearing grey gloves. Holding her bangs out of her eyes was a clip that resembled a little computer chip.

Overall.. She was an odd sight to see.

Espio went back to meditating without even a second glance. He was a very observant ninja, but he wasn't really interested in watching what was going to happen. Vector was simply going to scare away another customer, Espio believed.

"What's wrong?" The vixen asked curiously. She walked over to Vector's desk and looked at the desktop. "A virus? I can fix that!"

This got Espio up. He seriously did not want an amateur working on their computer.

"I do no-" Espio began, only to be interrupted.

"Ya can?" Vector asked, surprised. He had just noticed the odd vixen, but he was a little more observant than Espio gave him credit for. He believed she looked competent enough. Besides, he didn't know what to do himself.

"Yea. I got real good at this stuff back home," she replied without hesitance, leaning over the desk to pull the desktop around so it was facing her.

She hit a series of keys and a window Espio didn't recognize cam up. She began typing letters and numbers, pausing every now and then to think and, he thought, decipher something. Pretty soon she exited.

"There," she began, "Virus taken care of. I also updated your firewall, if you don't mind-you guys have a really horrible virus scanner!"

"What do you want?" Espio asked, slightly irked that this girl had simply waltzed in. He thought she was trying to show off. The girl turned to face him, and, instead of seeing hurt like he expected to, he saw surprise in her eyes.

"Oh, I almost forgot! I need your help finding my older brother!"

Espio blinked in slight surprise. So she really did need their help? Surprise there. "Well, tell us about him and we can help."

"Well," she began quickly without hesitance, "he looks like me, just several inches taller and his fur has a lot of black mixed in and his muzzle and tail tip and ear tips are black and his eyes are grey-green and he's usually wearing a yellow-green hoodie and-"

"Slow down!" Vector cried out, trying to write down the information.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" the girl replied. Then she continued, "His tail is really bushy, unlike mine, and-"

"Didn't you say he looked like you? These are a lot of differences," Espio commented dryly.

"I'm sorry! I'm just-I-well, I'm panicking!"

"Why? And why aren't your parents coming to us instead of you?" Vector asked suddenly.

"Our parents are not alive anymore, but that's a story I won't go into because it isn't important right now! Clyde is the only person I have left in this world. Well, not really, but he's the only one I trusts and-by the way, my name is Hailey!"

"Not meaning to offend you, but do you by chance have ADHD or ADD?" Espio asked, highly unimpressed by Hailey. She seemed way too hyper for her own good.

She thought for a second or two before replying, "You're not offending me! At least you didn't ask if I was crazy! But yea, I have ADHD. My dad told me four or five years ago!"

"Well... how old are you now?"

"Fourteen. Clyde is seventeen, though! So it's okay!"

Espio watched Hailey, who had begun bouncing on the balls of her feet, her eyes flitting to the side every few moments. He guessed she was wanting to see every litle aspect of where she was. She didn't seem nervous, just... hyper.

Way. Too. Hyper.

"By the way, you should probably update your computer-there are really easy ways to do it!" Without much warning, she was typing something in that little black screen.

"Hey, wait just a minute!" Vector exclaimed. He picked Hailey up easily-he was a croc, after all- and set her down away from the computer. She looked up at him in a confused way. "You can't just come in and mess with someone's desktop! When we wanna update, we'll update!"

"But your version is so old, all the up-to-date virus programs and firewalls aren't compatible, and it's easier for viruses to get through with your version!" she seemed to _chirp _happily. "I was just trying to help."

"Listen, we'll help ya find your brother, but don't ever mess with our computer again, okay?" Espio demanded. Hailey simply shrugged.

"Alright." Before either could stop her, she reached over and hit a key. "Before you asked, I just hit "cancel action" so don't freak out on me! I gotta get back to my home! Bye!"

She was gone in seconds.

**-LineBreak-**

Vector sat down at the kitchen table. "Espio, got some bad news," Vector started. "I can't find any fox by the name of Clyde matchin her description of him!"

Espio sat down across from him while Charmy buzzed around the kitchen. "Well, the girl did seem highly distracted and admitted to having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder." At Vector's blank stare, Espio added, "ADHD."

"Oh," Vector responded stupidly. Then he nodded in understanding. "Oh! So yer sayin' she might have been too distracted to really give us a correct description!" Espio nodded.

"Maybe you should look up some information on Hailey as well," Espio suggested. Vector was silent before he groaned suddenly. "What's wrong?"

"I already did. I completely forgot I did. She doesn't have an existing file!"

"What?"

Espio stood up, confusion evident on his face. "But that's impossible! She has to have a file! If she does not, that means she is not real-or at least the government does not know about her."

Vector fell silent and stared at the ceiling for a few moments. "We don't know much about her," he stated suddenly. "We don't even know if she was born in a hospital. They might not have files on her. The government really might not know she and her brother are alive, or real for that matter!"

**-To Be Continued-**

**She's a spazz, but she's my spazz! XD And if you can't tell, at first neither Espio nor Vector really like her very much... of course, I wouldn't like some girl to just randomly come in, ask for my help, then start messing with my computer...**

**I'm gonna suggest a spoiler and tell you to read my profile to find more info on Hailey.  
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**If you like it so far, review. If you have constructive crit, review. If you have flames, review anyway-barbecue at my house!**


	2. Really Rushed Chapter

**A/N: Chapter 2. Sorry it's really rushed but I'm already getting a slight writer's block heh...**

**Disclaimer in the first chapter.**

It wasn't hard to find the strange vixen. No, not at all. The hard part was getting her to come back to the Chaotix.

He found her sitting on a park in the bench, doing something on a little... MP3 player? Espio blinked in confusion and watched as she clicked random buttons. It didn't take him long to realize it wasn't an MP3 player, but a mobile phone.

After a few moments of consideration, he walked over to her. "Hailey?"

She glanced up at him. "Oh, hi detective! Did you find my brother?" Before he could answer, she was suddenly on a totally different subject. That let him know she wasn't taking any kind of medication for her ADHD like most people did.

"I reprogrammed this phone so it'll let me go on the internet without having to pay for the app and-oh, did you hear about the new super computer the CIA has? Maybe one day I can see it-Oh look! A message! I wonder who it is! Oh, never met them before, delete! And-"

Espio tuned out her rambling to think of something. He watched her as she bounced up and down in her seat. She seriously needed medicine, Espio decided. Finally, he commanded in a quiet but stern tone, "Silence."

She immediately fell silent and looked up at him, confusion evident in her eyes. Espio held his hand out for the phone, and she hesitantly handed it to him.

Looking at the phone, he saw things he'd never seen before. At least, nothing that anyone he'd ever met who actually had ADHD could understand-or take the time to understand.

He glanced through the numerous apps. There seemed to be way too many for the old phone to even handle! Espio glanced up at the girl, who for once wasn't smiling or bouncing. In fact, she seemed serious. Confused, but serious.

_Oh great, split personality disorder, maybe? That or she is simply bipolar..._

"This phone has way too much to fit on its limited memory," he stated suspiciously.

"Oh, well, you see, I upgraded it earlier so it had a wider memory. I increased its storage space by up to twelve times!" she replied chipperly, suddenly returning to her childish, bouncy state of mind. "All it took was me finding the pass key into the company's-"

Espio's eyes widened. "Wait! How long have you had this phone?"

Hailey shrugged. "A few years, but I had it activated yesterday, so my brother can track me down if he needs to!" She smiled at him, reminding him a lot of a naiive child.

That information was all he needed to know. "So, you are a hacker?"

She blinked in confusion. "Hacker?" She thought about it, a look of familiarity on her face. "Oh! Yea, my mom and dad trained me since I was old enough to walk and talk to hack. They taught me all kinds of codes and sometimes they would even put me in this thingie that..." she trailed off, thinking. "Actually, I can't remember what it did, but it never hurt. It gave me headaches. Clyde said it gave him headaches as well, but he never learned to hack. We were always better at what we were being taught after being let out of it though!"

Espio watched the girl incredulously. Experimentation? That could be reason for her, ahem, "health issues", but she seemed so happy about it.

_Well, she should be glad she was not simply an experiment when she was born, not like Shadow._

"Listen, Hailey, we need you to come back to the agency with us. We have a few... questions for you."

Hailey's smile faded into non-existence as she realized that he was there on serious business. After a few moments, she stood up and took her phone back. "Well... okay. But I can't answer all of your questions..."

**-Line Break-**

"Listen, Hailey, we ain't gonna yell at'cha, we just got a couple of questions for ya... like why you and your brother ain't got any government files."

Hailey stared up at the crocodile. She laughed suddenly. "Oh! I should have told you! Me and Clyde don't have any files, we weren't born in a hospital."

Espio opened his eyes and looked at her from where he leaned against the locker-closet-thing. "Oh? Then where were you born? Someone had to know you were alive-someone had to deliver you and your brother."

"Mom never told me who birthed us, but we were home-deliveries," she answered in a voice that suggested it was normal. It probably was, in her mind.

"You are aware most homes are not-"

Espio never got to finish his statement. He grabbed Hailey by the back of her shirt as she suddenly jumped up and went to the desk where her cellphone lay.

"Can you please pay attention for just ten seconds?"

Hailey looked at him in a way that seemed to say "you really want to speak to me like that?" Espio was unfazed by it.

"Listen, you need to stop doing that, it is getting extremely annoying," Espio stated. Hailey simply stared back with a blank expression.

Vector sighed. "Espio, let go of her. Just let 'er look at her phone."

Espio glared slightly at Vector. He looked back at Hailey and said, "You do know hacking is against the law, right?"

Hailey suddenly laughed. "Mom, Dad, and Clyde always said the law didn't apply to us since we don't exist as far as the government knows! Maybe they were wrong, but I was raised into hacking! I can't stop, even if I wanted to. Computer science is the only thing I know-programming, hacking, encrypting... creating viruses..."

"Wait, did you just say 'creating viruses'?"

"Umm, yea, why?"

Espio stared blankly at her before stating in a dry tone, "Creating viruses is not permitted either."

She stared at him, then all of a sudden became angry. "Well, listen here, chameleon! It's all I know, okay? It's my only defense and offense-I can't fight, at all! Hacking and using viruses is the only way I can fight. All I'm good for is recovering information, so why don't you just shut the Hell up and stop telling me what I can and can't do?"

Vector and Espio stared at the usually bubbly teen in surprise, though Espio didn't show it. He released her and watched as she stomped over to the desk and grabbed her cell phone. She turned her angry glare back to them.

"This is my only chance at ever finding my brother, since it seems you guys ain't gonna help me," she hissed at them. "It's the only way I'll ever find him, and it's my only defense."

_Yep, definitely split-personality disorder. There is no other way she could go from sweet to vehement so fast._

Hailey stalked out the door and slammed it on her way out. Espio looked at Vector, who simply shrugged.

"Well, we're gonna find 'er brother, that's a given. We can't have the girl goin' 'round tellin' people that we're bastards or somethin'."

**-To Be Continued-**

**So... Umm... Hailey's a messed-up kid, ain't she? Hehheh... She has ADHD and Split Personality Disorder... if you really read, I'm sure you'll know why. Also, if you read her profile, you can probably guess.**

**So, uhh... review please? I know it isn't that good but it was reeeaaally rushed because I'm in the middle of exams this week and I need to study...**


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